Is Your Sun Shining?

The Summer Solstice is here and the sun is shining bright and warm, pouring energy upon us! Brother Sun wants us to be healthy, happy, and grateful for the many blessings that flow to us from our Father-Mother-Beloved Friend: God!

Ask yourself: "What am I radiating outward into the world? Is it happiness? Is it melancholy? Disappointment or fatigue? Love and acceptance? Am I pouring the sunshine of my soul into my work, family, my body, and into my prayers and meditations? Into my yoga practice?"

Summer is the season of outward activity. But inasmuch as the world is always busy, let us also see this outward-bound tendency in its form of getting "out" from the daily grind and being rejuvenated and refreshed by the sunshine of nature: water, sky, wind and sun! 

It continues to surprise me how many people do not think to take a break from their daily routine. Many never take a true vacation: meaning something more than a weekend or day here and a day there. For those of high ideals and energy, vacation isn't a luxury, it is a necessity, for it can provide the distance out of which comes inspiration as well as refreshment. It is a form of non-attachment (to daily duties) and non-attachment is the key to success. Vacation is as much a requirement for success as work. (It isn't, however, equal timewise! Just as hours of sleep are not equal to hours of activity!)

For meditators, there's another form of a "vacation." And, NO! This doesn't mean to stop meditating for a week or so! (Ha, ha!) Indeed, quite the opposite. Nor does this "vacation" substitute for the more traditional one of R&R. 

Devotees need to go on retreat at least once a year. Long term meditators need to take personal and private seclusion time, also once a year. Call retreat and seclusion, a "vacation" from ego and an immersion in soul rejuvenation. Retreats are generally taken with others and may or may not have a program element of learning and deepening some aspect of one's spiritual life or practices. 

Seclusion is personal and private and therefore always in silence. In both cases longer, deeper, and thirsty meditations are sought. So also is time to go deeper into spiritual inspiration from reading and study. Sometimes fasting (usually partial) is helpful as is journaling and being in nature if possible. 

It is summertime for sure. So, I hope you, too, will get out into nature for a hike; camping, boating; relaxing by a river, lake or the shining sea! Drink in the sunshine of divine energy pouring through the sun. 

Since time immemorial the sun has been a symbol of divine energy and presence in the lives of countless peoples everywhere. In our society, those who study the past often say that ancient peoples were “sun worshippers.” Isn’t that view but an assumption? Why should we make that assumption? Giving peoples of the past the benefit of intelligence, we might just as easily assume they viewed the sun as an outward manifestation of God in creation: just as St. Francis did, calling him, Brother Sun!

Paramhansa Yogananda taught that “the sun is a symbol of the spiritual eye.” One who has never had the deeper experience in meditation of the spiritual eye (at the point between the eyebrows) might assume that depictions of the spiritual eye were but symbols of the sun. But Yogananda is saying that it is quite the opposite. Indeed, the appearance of the spiritual eye in meditation in no small way resembles the after-image of the sun! The physical sun of our galaxy is a manifestation of the the divine sun at the heart of every atom.

Let us view our Brother Sun, then, as a divine emissary which in objective fact and in subtler metaphysical truth brings to us life, creativity and energy. Every time you feel His warmth and absorb His healing rays, think of our Heavenly Father who gives us life and health.

As Krishna tells us in the Bhagavad Gita:

If there should rise

Suddenly within the skies

Sunburst of a thousand suns

Flooding earth with beams undeemed-of,

Then might be that Holy One’s

Majesty and radiance dreamed of!

May you be a sunshine of joy to all,

Swami Hrimananda

Here Today; Gone to Maui!

There's nothing like being a tourist to view life as a play, actors entering the stage and the exiting, to be seen no more!

Ah, indeed....paradise....Hawaii is no place for serious thought.......seriously?

Every time something deep comes into my mind, a mango or papaya intervenes, or the sound of crashing surf across the street reminds me of the waves I am missing!

Well, we've enjoyed our brief time here, though time stands still when there's nothing going on and no appointments to meet, or decisions to be made!

It's interesting how we humans, parading in our swim suits and beach attire, are SO self-conscious of appearances when, in fact, being far from home and away on vacation, no body will remember you or care. The few who notice have no comment and what judgment they render is silent and fleeting!

If one were at home, at a pool, spa, or lake, and being around friends, the self-consciousness would grow in leaps and bounds, but why should it? Sigh.......one advantage of being "mature" is the ease and conviction with which one simply doesn't care to imagine what others might think or see!

Seeing all these people parading by I wonder what stories are there to tell! Imagine how much their stories differ from their outward appearances!

I think it is good that one takes a break from routine and from familiar surroundings and people. It is good for the soul to be unknown and to shed the "clothes" of self-definitions and the expectations and opinions of friends in order to be "naked" before our soul and our God.

We've had a lovely time here on Maui and are thankful for the friends who have made it possible to take this break from a very intense schedule.

The politics of America faded, thankfully, from view, and so have many other things, yet, not everything. There are existential issues that no one can dismiss.

A dear friend, for example, has been in transition from this world, fading daily, but not quite gone and not quite there. The pall of death, its meaning and its finality, weigh upon the waves as I ride them joyfully toward the shore. It's not sadness for her departure, nor yet for any sense of my own loss, but rather the question lingers, "Will I be as present and joy filled as she when my time comes?" The sense of impermanence of life, indeed it's lingering meaningless, hovers like a dark cloud.

Not that I have a particular investment in meaninglessness, it's just, rather, the question of WHAT exactly is MOST meaningful? What parts are important and what parts are NOT!

When in my mid-twenties I traveled to Europe and Asia for over a year, I remember flying back to America and praying that I not get caught up in the littleness of life (again). Well, I've learned that it's not the details that are the problem; it's our attachment and identification with them. After all, it's no small detail when one is hungry or thirsty! It can become pretty important then.

Why can't I just take a vacation? A vacation is NOT a vacation from issues; it's a break to put them in perspective. If you don't plan or take a vacation, you are avoiding your issues!

I am deeply grateful for the grace of a true Guru, for the practice of kriya yoga, true friends and the privilege of spiritual service. All of these bring the parade of life's potential meaninglessness into clear and beautiful focus.

Joy to you and welcome home to me!

Hriman